The dry season came like a hush after thunder gentle, measured, reverent.
Rain had washed away the last embers of war months ago, and in its place bloomed new roots, not just in the soil, but in the spirit of the people. Crops were rising. Schools reopened. Markets no longer whispered in fear but sang with the bartering joy of ordinary days. Children laughed in the courtyards again—without checking for shadows.
In the rebuilt capital of Ọ̀dànjò, the scent of roasted maize, flowering hibiscus, and fresh ink filled the air.
And beneath the eaves of the House of Restoration, Ayọ̀kúnlé bent over a scroll—not royal decrees, not treaties or tallies of wealth, but a collection of children's drawings.
He smiled.
One showed him as a dragon-slayer, wielding a blade twice his height. Another had him riding a talking elephant, scattering dark clouds with laughter. A third showed him in the middle of a circle his arms stretched wide, surrounded by smiling faces, his crown replaced with flowers.
That one, he kept close.
"Even in their wildest imagination," he murmured to himself, "they don't paint kings with iron and gold. Only with kindness."
Behind him, footsteps approached—the soft glide of sandals worn by someone careful but unapologetically present.
Adérónké stepped into view, her arms crossed, a woven sash of indigo and bronze slung across her chest.
"They're expecting you at the forum," she said, tilting her head.
Ayọ̀kúnlé looked up, a soft breath escaping him. "And what pressing matter must I bless with royal wisdom today?"
She smirked. "The council of potters believes the new clay quota is unfair. The fishers argue the tides are being manipulated by rival provinces. And the scholars have asked that you reconsider your refusal to name a holiday after yourself."
He snorted. "That again? What would they call it? The Day of the Once-Cursed?"
"Maybe just 'The Turning,'" she said more gently. "A reminder of when everything changed."
Ayọ̀kúnlé fell quiet. His eyes drifted past her to the hills beyond the city, where distant fires of village life flickered like stars brought to earth.
He rose from the bench slowly, smoothing the folds of his robe. "Tell them I'll come. But first, walk with me."
The two walked side by side through the southern fields, where sunflowers leaned tall and proud toward the pale sky. Farmers paused from their work to nod respectfully no bows, no trembling. Ayọ̀kúnlé insisted on that.
He did not need fear to lead.
As they walked, he shared pieces of his dreams visions, he called them, of what might be.
Schools that taught not just history, but healing.
Farms that shared seed and soil, not just competition.
Homes that opened their doors to all tribes, whether born of the forest, the desert, or the coast.
"You sound like a poet," Adérónké said at one point, raising an eyebrow.
"Perhaps I am," he replied. "Perhaps I always was. Maybe that's why the sword never truly fit."
She gave him a sideways glance. "It fit just fine when it needed to."
He chuckled. "True. But these hands… I want them to build, not break."
They reached a small knoll, where an old baobab tree stretched its limbs like a guardian over the land.
There, a monument stood.
Carved not in his likeness, but in the images of those who had given their lives for the dawn they now lived in Tùndé, who had led the first charge. Sùúrù, who had sheltered the orphans during the siege. Aníkẹ́, who had sung through the fire. All their faces etched into stone, their names glowing faintly in the light.
Adérónké placed a single kola nut at the base.
"Do you ever feel like it should have been you among them?" she asked quietly.
Ayọ̀kúnlé's jaw tightened.
"Yes," he admitted. "Every day."
"And yet, you live. Not for guilt—but for something greater."
He nodded. "For them."
That evening, as the horizon swallowed the sun, the sky began to change.
First came the wind—not violent, but heavy with something old. Then, a low humming, like distant thunder crossed with song. The air shimmered, and for a moment, the stars blinked out.
The elders gathered on the temple steps.
Birds flew in spirals.
And in the sky, a tear opened.
It wasn't lightning, or storm, or comet.
It was… a gate.
A breach.
A doorway of flame and dust.
From it poured a sound unlike any they had heard—a language of elements, a call older than time. The people fell to their knees. Even the bravest warriors clutched their hearts.
And from the breach came a figure.
Not monstrous. Not divine.
Human.
But cloaked in a material that shimmered between worlds, eyes silver and voice like layered echoes.
They spoke one word.
"Ayọ̀kúnlé."
Not a question.
A summons.
The king stepped forward, calm but alert.
"I am here."
The figure bowed—not in servitude, but in recognition.
"We come not to conquer. But to warn."
Adérónké moved to his side. "From where?"
"Beyond your sky," the figure said, voice trembling like a drum stretched tight. "From the Archive of Suns."
Ayọ̀kúnlé frowned. "I know that name. It was in the forbidden texts. A lost civilization that vanished before even the first kings."
"They did not vanish," the figure said. "They fled. We fled. Because something is waking. Something that devours memory itself. It crosses time. It unravels lineage. It erases legacy."
Ayọ̀kúnlé's heart chilled.
"What does it want?"
The figure turned to the crowd. "Everything you have built. Everything you remember. Everything that makes you… you."
A deep silence fell.
The stars blinked once more, and the breach closed, but the warning remained.
Ayọ̀kúnlé turned to his people.
To his council.
To his warriors, builders, scribes, weavers, children.
"This peace we hold—this legacy we carry—it will be tested again," he said.
"But we are no longer a land cursed. We are a land chosen."
He raised his hand to the heavens.
"And whatever comes—we will remember. And in remembering, we will endure."
A new wind blew across the land, and somewhere in the fields, a child began to sing.
Not a war song.
Not a dirge.
But a lullaby.
A beginning.